The Enemy Within
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: There's No Place Like Home tag: Sam deals with the aftermath, because Dean's in no shape to.


**The Enemy Within**  
 **K Hanna Korossy**

It was like the massacre at that creep Randy's house all over again.

Not the massacre part, thank God. The only dead body this time had nothing to do with Dean. But he had the same dazed, devastated look on his battered face as he'd had then. Now it was just aimed at Charlie as she sobbed in Sam's arms.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the time or place for triaging the people Sam cared about. Unlike Randy, Clive Dillon didn't live in a bad part of town: the gunshot, not to mention the full-on fight in the front yard, must've attracted attention. The cops were probably already on their way.

"Dean," Sam called softly. When that failed to get a reaction, he said it more sharply. "Dean!"

Charlie flinched in his arms, as did Dean. Shell-shocked eyes moved to his, an awful déjà vu.

Sam swallowed back his own despair. "Get the back door open. The car," he quickly clarified, when Dean gave the house an abortive glance. As Dean turned to the driveway, Sam realized his further mistake and added, "The Impala." Because there were three cars there. Crap.

As Dean moved off, Sam carefully slid his arm under Charlie's legs, trying not to jostle the arm he was pretty sure was broken. Her gasp confirmed it. "Sorry. Sorry. We're gonna get you outta here and fixed up, all right?"

Maybe she nodded a little. It was hard to tell as he struggled to lift and carry her with minimal jarring. Just like he had once before, when she'd also had a broken arm, and his chest clenched a little tighter at the reminder of all the pain they'd caused their friends.

Dean was standing by the open Impala, gaze everywhere but on Sam or Charlie, listlessly fingering his keys. But there was a blanket on the back seat that hadn't been there before, and Sam wondered just how shut down his brother was. Not enough to get into the back with the girl he'd beaten up.

Sam settled Charlie as best he could, regretfully grateful when she passed out. Climbing back out, he bent to meet Dean's eyes.

"We gotta move the cars."

Dean's eyes slid over to the minivan that still stood with its door open. What Charlie had arrived in? The Impala looked like it had followed it, though…

Sam shook his head. "You get Charlie's car." Dean's six-foot-one had a better chance of fitting in the Gremlin than Sam's six-four. "Park it around the corner." A good police canvass wouldn't miss it, but they'd have no reason to suspect her, not with the murder-suicide Sam had set up inside.

Dean hesitated, then nodded and went to work.

Sam, in turn, wiped down the minivan. Whoever had driven it there, it was a stolen car and needed to be free of prints, and he didn't trust Dean to be thorough in the state he was in. It would be better to move it, too; even if the cops connected it to the murder and young Clive, there was still a trail that would lead back to the bar where Dean and Charlie had been. But there wasn't time. Sam could already hear the distant wail of a siren.

He sprinted away from the clean minivan and slid into the Impala's driver's seat. Sam used his set of keys to start her, and with a glance at the still figure in the back seat, lurched the car out of the driveway. He swung around the corner, to where Dean was just prying himself out of the Gremlin, and pulled up next to him.

There was a beat when he thought he might have to tell Dean to get in, but then his brother got with the program. Even as the police car sounded like it was turning onto Dillon's street, the Impala roared up the side road.

He caught Dean's glance at the rear-view, and knew he wasn't looking for pursuit. "She's out. I think we should hit the hospital next town over."

There was hesitation before every reaction. Sam didn't know if it was incomprehension or uncertainty, but Dean finally nodded.

At the next stoplight, Sam checked his phone for directions and headed south.

Charlie moaned in unconsciousness but didn't rouse. Dean cringed in her place.

"Dean…" Sam started, not even sure where to go with that.

"Don't." It was the first thing Dean had said since…since. And it sounded as chewed up as he was.

"I'm guessing Dark Charlie didn't pull any punches," Sam continued anyway. "It was self-defense, man—Charlie'll know that."

"That's not why I snapped her arm!" Dean flared up. They both cast a guilty glance at the back seat, but Charlie hadn't stirred. "I lost it, Sam," he continued quietly, flatly. "I forgot it was Charlie. I just wanted to kick her ass."

Sam nodded, pained. Yeah, he'd guessed as much. He'd also _known_ that Dark Charlie would do her best to goad Dean's worst out of him, not realizing how bad that really was, and that their Charlie would know that. But Dean wasn't going to hear any of that right now.

He drove on, fast, preoccupied now only with what story they'd tell the hospital.

00000

Charlie roused at their arrival, which made things ten times easier. Instead of two huge guys—one of them bloody, too—carrying in one tiny unconscious girl, the tiny girl spoke up with amazing strength in her voice to vouch for her friends who'd arrived just in time to save her from an assailant, who unfortunately got away. Dean went from potential villain to hero, and Sam saw him fold even more into himself at the attention.

They took Charlie off for x-rays, and Sam shuffled his brother into the bathroom to clean up.

Sam had some of Charlie's blood on him, too, and dabbed at his jacket as his gaze landed on his brother in the mirror. "We can take her back to the bunker when they release her," Sam said. "Let her recover there."

Another pause. "If she wants to come."

"Closest she's got to a home right now," Sam said softly.

Dean's eyes closed for a second. "I can stay at the motel in—"

"Stop." This time it was Sam's order. "Just stop, all right? Dean, Dark Charlie _killed_ someone. I'm pretty sure she'd have killed you, too, if she'd had the chance. So you got rough with her—she'll _get it._ If anything, I think she's gonna be beating herself up for having that darkness in her." He snorted a laugh at the irony. "Something you two have in common."

Dean glared heatlessly at him.

Sam sighed. So much for getting through to him. "Let's just…get home and figure this out, okay?"

Back to silence. Dean turned the faucet off, tossed the paper towels, and strode out of the bathroom.

Well, at least he wasn't standing around aimlessly anymore.

Two hours later, they loaded a sleepy, casted Charlie into the Impala. Dean got into the passenger seat without comment, and Sam drove them home. His brother disappeared as soon as they arrived, but it didn't take much to guide the pliant patient to one of their aired-out spare rooms. Sam literally tucked her in, left her meds, her phone, and some water by the bed, and stood there a moment in amazement.

He'd only done this stuff for Dean before, and maybe during one illness for Jess. Amazing how this girl had slipped so seamlessly into their lives. At one point in the hospital, one of the nurses had grown concerned over Dean's shocky appearance, and Sam had explained it away that Charlie was "his girl." But she was both of theirs. Not romantically, but…sisterly.

And Dean didn't take hurting family lightly.

Sam sighed, turned on the desk light and turned off the main light, and left the door cracked behind him. Dean's own bedroom door was shut tight. Sam listened a moment, but there was only silence within.

He only noticed the missing whiskey bottle when he went to get himself a drink before bed.

00000

He was the one who tended Charlie over the next two days, helped her clean up, got her clothes, made her food—well, heated leftovers of things Dean had made—and twice held her while she cried over Wellington and Dillon and pain and guilt. Dean had retrieved her car without their discussing it, but otherwise only made hollow-eyed appearances when Charlie was safely in her room and their paths couldn't cross, and he mostly ignored Sam.

Sam finally cornered him in the garage, changing the oil in Charlie's car.

"I still can't believe she came here and got the car without us knowing about it," Dean said gruffly after a few minutes of Sam just standing there watching him.

Sam almost smiled; he knew his brother wouldn't tolerate the silence long. "Yeah. What good's a secret lair if people know about it?"

"She's not _people_ , Sam," Dean insisted, no humor in his voice. "She's…"

"Family," Sam said quietly. Which was why Dean was changing the oil in a car he'd scrupulously maintained during the year-plus Charlie had been gone.

Dean jerked his head in agreement and rolled back under the car again.

Sam sat down by the wheel well like he had so often over the years while Dean puttered with the Impala. Dean offered an automotive lesson nearly every time, and sometimes Sam took him up on it, but mostly he was just content to hang out with his big brother.

Dean slid out once more, lips tightening when he saw Sam there, and stood to disappear under the hood. "Piece of crap toy car…" Sam could hear him muttering after a minute.

"She's doing all right," Sam finally offered, because Dean would never ask.

A moment of quiet, then excessive banging.

"She's just sore, and the cast'll be off in four weeks." Only the ulna had been broken, a clean, closed break: it could've been a lot worse.

"I know, Sam, I was there," Dean growled at the motor.

He hadn't been, not really. Not willing to be in the hospital cubicle with Charlie but hovering in the waiting room like a ghost, he hadn't appeared to listen to Sam's updates. Of course, Sam had known better.

Sam shifted, arms hanging loosely over his drawn-up knees. "And she's wanted to see you."

Total silence.

He glanced up at the frozen sliver of his brother's profile he could see. "She's not mad, Dean. She's not even hurt, not like that. She's…processing. She's got all of Dark Charlie's memories now, and…they're pretty dark. But she doesn't blame you. Dude, she made the deal to split herself to save Dorothy. She's _been_ there."

He'd had no illusions why that Mark was now on Dean's arm. Sure, to kill Abaddon; that was the justification. But Dean had jumped in without considering the consequences because Sam had abandoned him. And Dean had nothing left without his family.

Sam pushed to his feet. "So get over yourself, all right? No one's beating you up about this but you. And I could use the help with research." He dropped a hand on Dean's shoulder as he passed him and gave it a quick squeeze, feeling the tremor in the muscle. But he wasn't shaken off.

Sam walked on, hoping he'd said the right thing. He figured maybe so an hour later when Dean appeared in the library, silently collected a pile of books, and sat down to read. He didn't even glance at Sam, but Sam was still counting it as a win.

Charlie unexpectedly showed up in the library the next morning, freshly dressed, still healing, but with some of her spirit back. Especially when she told Dean she forgave him, then set off to find the book that might help save him.

Dean stared after her.

"She's right, Dean," Sam said with quiet belief. "You can do this. We can do this."

There was a moment when he feared Dean would argue, or bail, or even just give him the hollow-eyed look he'd been sporting too often of late. But all Dean finally said was, "Then let's get to work."

Sam let out a long overdue exhale, and smiled as he followed him back to the books.

Charlie was right: they were Winchesters, and they had work to do.

 **The End**


End file.
